Perspective: The community is doing great things

George GardnerMayor, St. Augustine

Published Sunday, March 09, 2003

A Neighborhood Councils Office in City Hall, parking and traffic management, signs, St. George Street ordinances, entrance corridors guidelines, Sebastian Inland Harbor plans, utility deposit refunds, code revisions, citizen workshops on how government works, an historic preservation plan, adaptive reuse of the vacated fire station: Your new City Commission has all these balls in the air, and there's only one way we could do it.

We started by getting 13,000 citizens plugged into the system.

At our first regular meeting -- seems like months ago -- we moved our meetings to a more convenient time, expanded opportunities for public input, made our meetings more citizen-friendly and put out the call for citizens to volunteer. In short, we dredged up an old-fashioned concept that government is not only for the people, but also of and by the people.

As mayor, I've begun regular office hours from 9 a.m. to noon Tuesdays at City Hall. Commissioner Don Crichlow, among other activities, has assisted Trinity United Methodist Church with some stained glass window needs and mediated concerns between the American Inn on San Marco Avenue and the adjacent residential neighborhood. Commissioner Errol Jones has begun his promised town meetings, joined historian David Nolan in a day of presentations at St. Augustine High School and has been canvassing merchants on their concerns with revisiting the St. George Street ordinances.

I pride myself on getting out into our community. Everywhere I go, it seems, I bump into another commissioner. I'm very proud that we seem to be everywhere and tackling everything.

Commissioner Jones suggested each of the commissioners develop a priorities list. The city manager condensed all the ideas into one list. It's almost two pages long -- single-spaced.

The secret weapon to catch up on so many vital community needs, too long unattended, is our citizens.

Volunteers are developing the Neighborhood Councils program and staffing its office on the ground floor of City Hall from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday.

All areas of our community have submitted thoughts for a street entertainment, or "buskers," draft plan, which will be presented shortly for community study before starting public workshops.

A new Parking and Traffic Committee, formed from some 40 citizen applicants, began work March 5 at 1:30 in a workshop with your City Commission.

Entrance corridor guidelines are now in our city codes to maintain architectural styles and design along San Marco and King streets and Anastasia Boulevard. A planner will be added to city staff to oversee these guidelines. Commissioners have suggested the new planner also be experienced in historic preservation planning.

Volunteers are reviewing zoning, building and tree codes to suggest updated revisions.

Commissioners are reviewing previous Sebastian Inland Harbor development plans, and getting citizen input on elements they'd like to see in an eventual project.

A plan to refund utility deposits to customers -- reviewed by a citizen volunteer -- will be presented to your City Commission shortly.

A citizen volunteer is shaping up a program to help our citizens better understand our city government's workings.

Citizens are inputting ideas for adaptive reuse of the vacated fire station behind the Lightner Museum.

Charleston Mayor Joseph Riley, in developing his plan for Neighborhood Councils years ago, noted that the program would "begin a cooperative effort with the citizens of our city which will bring together good ideas and solutions to meet the needs of our people ... By working together, we can ensure that our city will be the kind of place we can proudly say, we planned together."

In the nature of political history, future generations might say this mayor, or that City Commission, did great things. They will be wrong. This community is doing great things.

I had a dream the other night. An old man lay on his death bed. He was, in his time, a man of great wealth and power. His every wish had been a command. He had developed great modern empires where once stood old buildings and ancient woodland trails. He had played golf on sweeping landscapes once home to wildlife and long-forgotten people. He helicoptered or jetted above the jammed highways in the new world he helped create.

A great and powerful man, with wealth beyond the reasonable needs of himself and his heirs, now reduced to a hospital gown, some uncomfortable tubes and a crank-up bed.

And he thought, I have won so many battles. I have had a good time, a full life. I have made my annual contributions to charity, that I could enjoy my luxury in good conscience. But how will I be remembered? What will I have really left behind, that will hold my name in reverence for future generations?